I used to play CP2020 and one sourcebook had a wacky vehicle called the Punknaught. It was basically a sprawl ganger tank made out of junk.

I have been working on a basic demolition run story where Lone Star gets wind of a gang building one of these and then started thinking that the idea may be a bit far fetched.

So the question is: In your view, is the Punknaught a rediculous and unreasonable addition to SR or does it seem like just the sort of thing a gang might use to get a leg up on the competition?

The bigger question is why? Bringing out a tank into the streets draws attention. Are they that confident that it will be of any use? Are they just fark nuts crazy? Do they have the local police in their pockets? Some people don't need a junker tank, and why bother when a vindicator attached to a junker APC will do the trick?

Tanks require a lot of upkeep, and I know a buddy who used to repair tanks during the gulf war. Tanks are big, and the barrel is also huge. You need a very secure chassis to even begin to think about firing it especially when using a high caliber shell. They are heavy, and slow, and big. Although it would be interesting to have a gang that thinks they can get away with building a rough shod junker tank to only find that the gun recoil just annihilates the vehicle that they built. Remember there are a whole lot of other ways these things can go wrong and a gang with any brain in their head who does any kind of research will know that you can't half ass when creating a tank. At one point another tank repair crew was doing some work on a tank and replaced a barrel. They put in the twenty-four 3/4" steel bolts but didn't set the barrel correctly inside the tank so when they did a test fire since it wasn't properly placed in the tank when the barrel fired the force of the recoil sheered off all of the 24 bolts and would have killed the occupants inside (which is why they do a remote practice fire every time do repairs on a tank.) Even with these huge like 6"+ inch 3/4'" steel bolts. Needless to say some people were doing shit work for a loooong time, and my friend was able to take one of the sheered bolts which he showed me. It was a very clean cut.

The more interesting idea is if LS is just worried about collateral damage. Sure the junk tank might demolish itself and take out the rival gangers at the same time thus solving two problems, but to have something like that hit the street even for a moment might make them loose their juicy contract for the area they are supposed to protect. Have the gangers building the tank just some crazy drugged up gang who have gotten where they are by extremely brash moves that although end up generally being blood baths, but they have a lot of recruits and pull in quite a lot of wanna be gangers who end up getting put on the front lines and killed. It is throwing the neighborhood down the tubes and they realize that even if this stunt causes more damage to the gang using the weapon then the rival gang that they can't afford this. The gagners also supply a lot of street drugs in the area so after they pull in recruits they get them hooked on a cocktail of drugs, and right before sending them into battle they give them some kamakazi or some serious hard core combat drugs.

LS can't put pressure on the gang, as they have someone very powerful backing them and so they hire a group of runners under the table. The contract is big, and if they can turn the neighborhood around they will be set for life and there is a fat promotion to the chief of LS security. He wants to take down the gang badly, but is afraid of the higher powers at work who are supplying them with high end combat drugs. There is also a question of why this gang is being funded to turn this area into a war zone. Maybe there is something more to this whole thing going down then anyone can ever realize? Why are things in this neighborhood going so bad so quickly.

It would be a nice spring board to a larger campain.

Yay dumpshock. Guy asks a question about a fictional vehicle idea, gets a long post about RL experience with tanks.

If I'm reading this correctly, the idea is not a "junker tank", but rather a tank-like vehicle cobbled together from spare parts, a-la Junkyard Wars. SR is not a mechanics-shop simulator, and all these RL concerns about stresses and recoil are pointless in a game that has man-portable assault cannons.

I could totally see this happening in SR--though not often. Picture it as a one shot thing one of the crazier gangs gets the idea to do, or something that happens occasionally in really isolated parts of the barrens where's nobody's going to care that gangers have their own tanks, and the gang leaders are essentially 3rd-world warlords anyway. The Spikes especially I could see doing this.

As far as rules, if you wanted to give it different stats from just a normal tricked-out APC, I'd suggest applying the glitch rules from the streetsweeper shotgun in arsenal. That'd be a good way to represent something cobbled together that might fall apart if you push it too hard.

Personally, I'd just use the normal mechanics and fluff it. IE: Those extra points of armor actually come from a cast-iron door welded over the driver-side window. A cookie to the first person who gets the reference.

I gave a RL story, because it is an important example of what happens when you screw up and how important trying to mount a barrel on a tank is. Not because I'm being an ass to other people who are just trying to be helpful.

He also said "junker tank" and so if he is thinking a tank made out of junk parts the vehicle might have one shot in it. Tank factories exist for a reason. I also gave some interesting ideas to run with. Something big sends up warning flares, but if there is some reason why LS just can't rein hell on them it makes the idea more plausible. It gives a story that has substance behind it.

Maybe I should just be snarky for thinking up such a reason.... it seems to be the way dumpshock is heading.

Rad wanted:

"Oh, that is SO cool!" I bet it would be even better armored than a citymaster. How about 30 armor and 25 body?"

Sadly some ideas are really just not very good.

Remember that SRworld is where a private security company set off a nuclear weapon in the middle of the second largest city in UCAS and nobody got very upset. LS has very heavily armed aircraft that would get it in under 5 minutes after it was spotted.

Yeah, I was a little harder on you there than I needed to be. I just get ticked off when people respond to an in-game question about guns or vehicles with alot of RL technical knowledge that has 0 bearing on playing shadowrun. The example you gave isn't important unless you're actually planning on building a tank, because in shadowrun there are specific rules for designing and building vehicles.

Going back and reading the rest of your post, I see there was some interesting story ideas in there as well, so sorry if I wrote it off a little early. Just keep in mind that not all of us are gun-nuts or engineers--and those of us who are aren't always interested in mixing that with our roleplaying.

It's like when RL martial artists respond to a question about the combat rules with a dissertation on how it should work: Interesting to some, but it's not relevant to the question and for most people is just damn annoying.



Not really. That's the other extreme. I just don't like it when questions about the game are responded to with in depth discussion of real life things that have no representation in the rules.

And like I said, I don't picture this being used outside of the zones where lone star doesn't bother to travel. If the gangers were dumb enough to stray into star-patrolled territory with one of those things, well...

Part of the problem is that the science of armored vehicle construction has gotten considerably more complex and exotic material oriented. For example, if you have some good welders, it would be possible to attach enough steel plate to a bulldozer to make it mostly immune to rifle fire (see home made tank rampage. The problem is that modern tanks are much more than just a lightly armored box. Even the cheapest anti-tank weapons will go through it longways, as they are made to disable real armored vehicles. Plus it would have to be warded to prevent a spirit from simply manifesting inside and killing the crew.

An interesting alternative story is that the gang steals a 'historical' tank for a specific rampage or distraction. For example, a bunch of guys with too much time on their hands have restored a Panther, of something. The gang steals it for the fun of driving around in it.

The science in 2070? The same one that understands magic?

It is fine Rad and thank you for looking at my post a little harder. The RL example was just to consider what goes into to constructing a tank. The lets make a big metal bad assed thing with some weapons and see what it does kind of thinking was WWI tanks, and they kinda sucked. The other example of the SR setting is how the hell could gangers get away with something like that, because if there isn't something there to stop LS from punking the crap out of those gangers the minute they find out what is going on then there could be no Punknaught in SR. You might even piss of the local mage chapter with a stunt like that and gangers don't fair well against high force spirits with immunity to natural weapons.

If there is fear of something greater it not only gives you a reason why a shadowrun team would be hired, but somewhere to go from there. You stop the tank, but lets say their recruitment is still being bolstered for their tactics. Maybe LS hires you to find out how they have been recruiting people, maybe the gangers actually do more complex versions of recruitment then gangers actually do. The leader might be some crazy drugged out psychopath, but maybe his right hand man might be a powerful mage who is a totally black trench coat pro.

Maybe the gang is backed by Horizon and they are testing out a new form of subliminal messages and using this gang and the area around it as test subjects using trid broadcasts on the demographic shows for latchkey kids. Maybe it is working but making them more violent then they anticipated and creating mental disorders. The tank might be nothing big, but it can open some interesting story development. Maybe it is a shell version of Horizon and is actually not Horizon at all but a group of vampires who are using some Horizon tech that they stole to try and create a ganger cult. They are trying to tweak it, because of the fact that they want more mentally stable sheep to follow their bidding. Maybe LS is convinced it is a AAA at work and is afraid that if they move they will suddenly mysteriously cease to exist. Maybe LS has also been effected by the subliminal messaging and that is the actual reason why they have not moved in on the gang in the first place. Through RP the party might notice that the LS officer they have been dealing with is getting more and more on edge, becoming erratic and that if the party looks into it they might notice that LS violence has been on the increase in the area ever since this gang started up.

The biggest point of SR is how far down does the rabbit hole go.

It's probably possible to get ~20mm thick steel plate in the correct shape, and find someone competent enough to weld it together in your garage so that is won't come apart when hit. It is probably not possible to get ~20mm thick face hardened steel plate, and definitely not possible to get ~20mm thick chobam (or whatever). It also not possible to weld chobam in your garage. And considering that anti-tank weapons are designed to defeat a considerable amount of modern armor material, the punknaught is basically only going to be good against rifle fire. Even simple 25mm and 40mm anti-armor grenades will penetrate more than enough steel (~50mm) to go right through any steel armor you could put on your punknaught.

Smoke, black and hot, choked the crew as the panzer careened into the Barrens; it's remaining engine whining like a dying banshee. It skidded and slid on the oil slick road until slamming a pile of rubble. A blackened dwarf threw open a hatch and tried to climb out; the smoke followed him, coiling about him. The Vultures descended. AR suites sputtering into life, the panzer wreck became laced in orange schematics, lines of weakness and load-bearing bolts. Others would arrive sound, but with their bulky and bizarre cyberarms, the gang tore, sawed and torched with practiced efficiency. They all knew how much this carcass could be worth, loading the meat onto the backs of few trolls they collected and perfected into hulking backpacks of cyber and skillwires. The birdman heard the others coming from his perch, his bulbous ears picking up their engines a few miles off. Quickly, the Vultures took what they could and shambled off.

Not before the internal kill switch was activated so that the tank couldn't be scrapped first frying the electrics on board and cooking off the ammo cash blowing up the tank from the inside. In under two minutes the attack choppers with force 7 movement come in and extract the crew making sure the tank is completely demolished. DU rounds make the tank a large pile of metal still worth scrap but not much else... yet in the badlands scrap metal is always worth something.

What would shock me is why a tank is not part of its brigade or an armored division. Tanks move in formation and it is how they do the most damage, there is also kill switches built into any take to make it a large pile of scrap metal. SR should be no different.... except maybe when the crew flips the switch the tank just auto detonates instead of waiting for the crew to escape.

I say go for it. Instead of worrying about all the reasons not to do it like are being rattled off above, just do it. Find a vehicle in the rules, up the Armor and Body a little bit, add a fixed mount panther assault cannon and have the gang run that thing around the Barrens and your PCs have to deal with it. I'd be more than amused with it as a player and I think describing the chaos as a GM would be fun to.

Even if it gets blown up, the gangers can always make another and just keep perfecting the idea until it's solid and useful for what they want. Maybe it's just securing their territory, I mean what other gang is going to piss with the gang with a tank? Not many. Unless they build their own tank. Ha! Perfect excuse, escalating gang war! See, the idea is not that far-fetched. If a gang or gangs had access to a large junkyard and had the tools and skills to build a ghetto tank, why wouldn't they do it?

Basically, if you think your group will like it and it has a solid idea behind it, I see no problem with it. Don't listen to all the nay-sayers around here. Have some fun and think outside the box of "canon" and "how it works in RL."

Whatever.

SR is where Blackwater nukes Chicago and everyone thanks them, then hires them to help clean up the mess.

LS or any corp security team would obliterate any gang producing that kind of threat and nobody would care.

In 2070? Chobam is today. 60 years ago folks were telling us we wouldn't break the speed barrier. Today people are telling my my kids "Viraly Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome" is an extension of asthma (not kidding on that one..). Its a Fantasy game where will power can summon the same force of a small nuke.
In first edition there was this cool note about how in Shadowrun Armor tech outpaced weapon tech but I don't think its been carried forward.

No one really said no to the idea. Some people just gave constructive advice on how to handle tanks roaming around in the streets as his question was "is this within the confines of SR?" Not this idea is awesome so I'm implementing it. If someone made that post it would be A - needless, and B - only create flaming. The poster actually had an interesting question as to how this could be done and still fit into the SR world.

However that being said if you want to play it all pink with no explanation then that is fine, but if you want to play black the only reason why a tank would be out in the streets would be for a very sinister reason. It would probably be even bigger then just a bunch of gangers deciding to build a tank in an area where LS has a contract.

Sorry, Rad, but sometimes RL has the best examples...

For instance, I give you:

The Colorado Bulldozer Rampage

Toetag, if you want to have your gangers build a Punknaught, I say "Go for it!"... In fact, I like the idea so much I might just use it myself. Thanks for the inspiration!

Note also that you'll see plenty of 'technicals' in places where there is no greater power. A punknaugt in Seattle wouldn't last 5 minutes. But you could have one on every street corner in Mogadishu (or similar places).

yup. Just because LS doesn't patrol the Z areas doesn't mean they don't maintain a pretty effective surveillance network covering them.

your tempting me to ask about this in another thread. Not because I don't agree but because I don't know where to stand. Reading Feral Cities I get the impression that nobody maintains network, surveillance, over well... feral areas. I'll need to cross check and ponder more.

Lone Star officer 1 "Well sir overhead surveillance picked up what looks to be a tank. Its shape and heat signature make it out to be that at least."

Lone Star officer 2 "It's probably nothing lets just leave it be and do no followup investigation what so ever."

Lone Star officer 1 "Yeah that sounds like a good idea I am totally on board with doing no follow up... oh yeah and three drones spotted it opening fire on a building."

Lone Star officer 2 *looks at the vid feed* "No that is probably some birds. Some attack pigeons and it seems like the building fell because it was probably structurally unsound."

Lone Star officer 1 "We have also gotten over 80 phone calls reporting on the ground that there is a tank moving in the exact same path that the drones are painting the image of again what looks to be a tank."

Lone Star officer 2 "Not my problem, and anyways it's attack birds. It's obvious when you look at the picture."


Trid feed from later that day with a biosculped elf shown in front of an exploded building

"Rampaging birds kill 70 wound 45 and destroy three buildings. Hi I'm Amy Jones reporting on this horrible scene where it was reported that a tank like object composed of attack birds rampaged around the city destroying cars and the a local gang The Blitzes. During this time three buildings just happened to collapse one that was reputed to be The Blitzes and the other two were apartment complexes. After the carnage the birds drove back into a warehouse and when Lone Star burst in on the scene not five hours later they found what reported to be not birds, but a large hunk of metal. Where these attack birds are the world may never know, but we should all stay in doors because you never know when the next bird attack will come. This is Amy Jones Trid news at 11."

Does the IDF patrol Gaza? But somehow someone is able to kill people who decide to launch rockets from schoolyards before they get off the grounds. And isn't it odd how all the carefully hidden tunnels full of explosives got hit by airstrikes?

Many very bad things can come out of areas without government that are full of desperate people. It certainly makes sense to keep an eye on them.

kzt you speak crazy. I mean that just makes sense. I mean haven't you herd of the ostridge syndrome?

On the one hand, I've always been a really big fan of pink mohawk style games. On the other hand, I'd have to say that there's just a point where things get a little too crazy be plausible. I certainly find the idea of a punknaught both awesome and hilarious, and I even find myself trying to brainstorm my own Shadowrun around one, but my immediate gut reaction is 'not in Seattle'. Certainly the Z zones are a wild place and LS doesn't want to go in there, but I'm certain they probably have some amount of surveillance of the area, or at least informants and they'd swoop in to do something about a tank getting built in the Sprawl's backyard... and if not them, probably the UCAS military if they got word of it, simply because gangers with that sort of tech and power would be something they'd want to put down before it got out of hand.

That doesn't however mean, that this sort of thing couldn't happen, it's just unlikely. But, I personally think it becomes more and more likely the further away from a heavily patrolled place you get. Like say... Chicago. Given Feral Cities description of the gangs in Chicago and places like the Makers Collective or whatever that group was called I could totally see it being viable in a place like that. With the background count, magic would probably be slightly less of an issue for the punknaught and since nobody really runs security of the corridor or the CZ except the people that live there, I could actually see it being a very viable thing to deal with rival gangs or perhaps even Bug Spirits. So if perhaps you could think of a run that took a group to Chicago on a day trip, like to retrieve some old data or capture somebody or something, you could probably throw the big clunky junk tank in as opposition for that run without anybody really raising an eyebrow.

Just my 2

I believe it was in Chromebook 2, Chromebook 3 or 4 had the other amazing vehicle: the ambunaught.

I think that thinking on what Synner has said and my own thoughts that Shadowrun is loose enough as a game world that you can literally have anything in it. So why can't you take a truck chassis, cut it in half, put on monster truck wheels, weld on slabs of steel, and paint it pink with spikes?

http://tsoalr.com/?p=867

I'd assume the ambunaught is the CP conclusion to guys jacking ambulances for the narcotics. Didn't JongWK put up some stuff about that?

All right, just to clarify what the punknaught is and is not, since I own the CP2020 book it's in...

A Punknaught is not:
1) A tank;
2) Generally doesn't have turrets;
3) A vehicle proper - it's more like a cobbled together engine, frame, random plating, and whatnot;
4) Does not belong in Seattle proper, for aforementioned reasons;
5) Something you'd build unless you lived in a Z-zone and were ALREADY crazy.

A punknaught IS:
1) A gang pride project;
2) Something to terrorize the other gangs and civilian populace with;
3) More visually impressive than effective;
4) Totally out of Max Max Beyond Thunderdome;
5) Hilarious and generally short-lived;
6) Would be fine in a Z-zone such as the Barrens or Ash Wastes.

For reference, the CP2020 equivalent of the Ares Citymaster is faster, better armored, and has more guns. The Punknaught example in the Chromebook is immensely cheaper and pretty much always spotted 'in the Combat Zone', which is Night City's equivalent of the Barrens. So it'd probably be like a crappy, unreliable, slow version of a city master - a heavily armored truck that has small arms on it, but no big cannons, unless somebody was feeling MIGHTY fancy.

On the subject of the barrens... Let me talk about what the barrens means per canon - if you want your Barrens to be different that's fine, but as written, certain things hold true:

In the barrens, there is no electrial power and no matrix save what you manage to steal via solar panels and rigging up a home-made signal booster. Running water is almost unknown. It's so bad that the Metroplex Guard said 'fuck it' and left it the hell alone, and Lone Star's standing orders is to never enter the Z-zone sections unless they do so with a bunch of tanks, IFVs, and attack aircraft with napalm - no lie, that's explictly spelled out. The streets police themselves, because gangs rule. We're talking Escape from New York and Mad Max, almost literally, since they were the inspirations for z-zones.
I think that it would be a stretch to assume Lone Star had anything remotely approaching 'surveillance' anywhere EXCEPT in Touristville, and even then it'll be spotty at best. If you choose to have your Redmond run a different way, that's fine, but recognize that as a Z-zone, Lone Star does not spend ANY money on it at all. Having surveillance is a D-zone thing, which Touristville is - while in Redmond, it's not quite the Barrens YET. Lone Star does not investigate anything in the Barrens unless there are many more explosions than normal, and given that the Red Hot Nukes live there, I'd say that would require some exceptional explosions. Last I recall, when that happened last they just bombed several city blocks into dust and didn't even bother to see what was going on. At best, the only time and effort Lone Star is going to spend on a z-zone is what snitches tell local cops when the cops need to make a bust to keep their stats up.

As part of the proof being in the pudding, I offer the Crime Mall -which is listed as in Puyallup, but I assume they mean ash waste section of Puyallup, which is also a Z-zone... If the corporate offices of Lone Star America wanted anything to do with Z-zones, they'd sure as shit focus it on the Crime Mall, because people sell assault weapons, explosives, rocket launchers, and highly illegal, highly dangerous stuff there that has only one purpose: to cause problems for people. But since the Crime Mall is still making money and the writeup for it notes that local Lone Star's been trying to put it out of business for years, but can only manage to pick up the small time dealers. Why? Because Lone Star Corporate is unwilling to spend the money to close it down, because the bottom line is that doing so won't make them any money.

After all, as long as the horrible, shitty people of the Barrens STAY in the Barrens, it's a losing prospect to spend any money on policing it. These people don't have power, water, or matrix access. They live based on what they can steal, the things they own are scrounged from junk or bought from the backs of junker cars because somebody not quite so poor stole something from the back of a truck. They police Touristville because Touristville is where the SINner residents of Redmond live, and ignore the rest because it's cheaper just to blast the residents to hell and back if they have the temerity to come to a civilized section of town.

In short, the Z-zone sections of Seattle - such as the Ash Wastes, the Verge, the majority of Redmond (Glow City, Hollywood, Rat's Nest, Plastic Jungles, etc) are all the PERFECT areas to have Punknaught in. Law-enforcement wise, there's no difference between the Blast Zone in Chicago and these areas, as Lone Star and KE have given them the same enforcement code: none at all. It's just that the Chicago zone has a wall around it, and is roughly square, rather than generally a north-south strip.

That said, however, I wouldn't bet on the punknaught lasting very long. If the gangers take it out of Redmond, Lone Star or the Metroplex Guard might just drop and air to ground missile on it, because it's a cheap fix and no REAL people will be hurt by it. But more importantly, if any one gang builds an effective punknaught in the true CP2020 sense, a LOT of other gangs are gonna mob up on them en masse because of the power imbalance. They'll feel threatened, and they'll want that threat ended. But that's what makes that kind of plot hilarious and awesome.

A patch work tank, and a patchwork APC are to different things. I would say that LS does some light surveillance (most likely extremely high altitude video surveillance from drone blimps) on the Barrens just so that the violence does not spill into any zones that they are actually making money off of if anything. A weapon that is mounted to a vehicle that can shell a D-zone from over a mile away is bad news, assault rifles and slipshod vehicles probably wouldn't even be given a second look, but it always pays to look out to see if the Barrens or Z-zones are ever going to make a concentrated push towards a population density that LS actually cares about. However if you are a Shadowrun team in the Barrens you know you have screwed up big time, because now you are in the shit, and everything you have is shiny and new (considering.) I mean the amount of gear a normal runner has on them makes them a target in the Barrens almost instantly.

That being said LS would have problems with patch work tanks being created in any zone that they have a vested interest in. A patchwork APC would also probably be dispatched in short work as well (at least more likely then a brand new APC which would probably be pulled over and interrogated.) There are different areas where even a crazy tank made up of random stuff would totally work, but if it is near an "important" population then one quick sparrowhawk later will see short work of it.

I'd never call a punknaught a tank. It's definitely more of an APC kind of deal.
As to high-altitude drones, that I can agree with. If for no other reason than fire preparedness if parts of the barrens that are close to D-zones start to burn. They might not know what exactly is going on down in the barrens, but they'd be able to tell if there were fires, explosions, etc.

As mentioned before a Punknaught doesn't fit into the Seattle setting. But it's perfectly fine in a feral city scenario like lagos or chicago imho!

Punknaughts are normally built by the more mechaniclly skilled (and highly crazy) gangs. Pretty much the whole thing is made up of scrap, can have anywhere from 1 engine to a shi't load of them, some even use AV engines. Weapons are at best a machinegun or assault cannon. Think big, loud, scary looking, but also very slow and not reliable in the least.

I've actually used them in CP2020 and their a trip, you just have to keep them away from anywhere the cops are since they blast em dead'er 'n heck really fast.

Some people have to get used to the fact that most people referring to "tanks" mean ANY armored (let's say armoured) fighting vehicle. (AFV)
Average joe will call self-propelled artillery a tank, as well as IFVs, MBTs, APCs ... you name it.

I think punktnaughts are a great idea for z-zones and the 2 great feral cities! A gang (etc.) would use its punktnaught for a decisive advantage in a local area control fight or just to build up prestige and stuff.

Keep in mind, Shadowrun has gangs whose MO is to blow things up with C-4 and anti-vehicle rockets. Z-zones mean "anything goes".

So, to address your concerns about LS, as long as they stay in the Z zone, you can put a tank there. As long as Lone Star 1) feels pretty confident it'll stay in the Z-zone or 2) feels it'll be more cost effective/profitable to attack it in a C or B zone (where they have drone emplacements, cameras, grid guide, etc.) than in the Z zone (where it's surrounded by hostile gangers and buildings regularly fall over for no reason), they'll leave it be.

Yes, an attack helicopter could take this out in no time, but it costs a lot of money to run an attack helicopter. If a few drones can take it out for less, they'll wait and use the drones.


In regards to the vehicle itself...

Generally the availability on military-grade vehicles is pretty high, so actually buying an old tank and repairing it seems unlikely. It would be cheaper to sell that off to the mafia, who could use a tank better anyway, plus it technically wouldn't be the punknaught.

However, the barrens has basically an infinite supply of old car parts, both in vehicles that were ditched after the crash (which led to riots), vehicles which were dumped there later because it's cheaper than dumping them somewhere else, and the constant influx of stolen vehicles. They have a LOT of parts to pull from, including a lot of trusty old Detroit steel still floating around. Grabbing an engine from this landmover, tossing it in the frame from this schoolbus, throwing on some giant tires and welding as much random spikes and chunks of steel on as you can manage makes a punknaught. Then you load it up with thirty dudes with AKs and rocket launchers. When you go into battle, smear it with vaseline or something and set it on fire. Then it's big and freaky crazy, plus shooting at everyone. Most likely the enemy will just poop their pants and run away. Even a professional runner team won't want to go toe-to-toe with thirty crazy gangers firing off AKs, MMGs and rocket launchers from inside of an armored, spiked, flaming, giant-tires schoolbus from bad-novacoke-trip hell.

It is not especially expensive to install weapons on firmpoints or hardpoints. Probably not turrets, but other options are available (including pintle mounts).

What are the advantages or disadvantages?

It's a vehicle, that's always a plus. Mobility in combat is good. Even bad mobility is better than none.
It's intimidating, which is a HUGE plus. If you can intimidate the enemy into retreating, or into never attacking you, that's a plus.
It does offer some degree of protection. I don't know if I'd make it vehicle armor or just personal armor, but either way, it would be more than 5/3.
You can haul a lot more ammo, and use bigger weapons. That MMG you wanted to use, but can't fire without setting it down every time? Just mount it on the punknaught.
Plus, this thing is cheap. Most of the parts are free. You just need time (which you have lots of), and a few guys with some technical expertise. There's like no loss as long as you have a super good mechanic on your crew.
If you have magic support, this is a force multiplier. Using spirits or elementals to confer their bonus to the entire vehicle (and thereby everyone within) is a lot more effective than using those same powers on one or two gang-members and leaving the rest to their own devices.

On the downside, it's not going to take much above small arms and melee weapons. AV weapons, snipers and such will tear this thing up. Same with go-gangs. It's basically just useful for use against other local gangs, mages, and other street people.
It's undependable. It breaks down a lot. But so does everything else. It might also randomly explode. Really, who knows.
It does require a lot of fuel to actually run it, which can be pricey.
It puts all of your people close together. A frag grenade in a window means chunky salsa.

Just about every runner team I ever saw in my tabletop groups would have jumped at such an opportunity, and gone toe to toe faster than you can describe the punknaught. Oe of those teams had an actual APC (painted white, with big black "UN" markers on it) and lived in a "bribe the usual suspects and no cop will bother you" zone, but just about every team had the firepower to destroy any punknaught in the first action phase.

SR3 light railguns sucked for most purposes (the naval rules were, like half the SR rules, clearly never tested) but a ganger AFV would have been great fun for our banshee.

A tank? Silly

Something Like Killdozer? A. Cool, and B. Completely Possible

A panzer is just a thunderbird in SR. The one in my tale is a group of smuggles who got hit coming over the border. Nothing special, really. I forget that people don't know that.

And Lone Star isn't going to waste 2000 nuyen or more on a missile and combat movement over something that isn't going to exit the Barrens or Hell's Kitchen, or wherever. Anytime they bring out the big guns it's a liability, it's lost profits since the city won't pay them for acting in an area they refuse to patrol. Even if they did act, it's bad publicity: "Lone Star bombs kids out on joyride. ORC spokesmen address a large crowd at the funeral, 'It's not surprising that the Star wouldn't bother investigating the alleged crime before they rain death from their cosy offices...'" It's not good press unless the punks try to bring it out, where the will get to "save local neighborhood from gang terror".

The nuke in Chicago was a big deal, lots of people cared - even though Eagle and Knight Errant used powerful barrier spells to contain it. They were fighting an invasion of insect spirits, not a couple of gangers in a Z-Zone.

Killdozer is a Punknaught.

Man I was literally laughing out loud while reading responses.

Ok, I screwed up my description of the Punknaught. It is not really a tank but more like a junkyard APC. Its silly because I used to drive APCs and obviously know the difference. Oops.

Anyway the basic story I set up was a Lone Star cop gets word of this thing being built. He wants to keep the balance of power and stop any possible media disaster so he uses confiscated weapons/drugs/whatever as payment to hire some runners to fix the problem. Its a basic demolition run thats a nod to my old CP2020 days.



This discussion has made me think of another question. In general, how well armed are gangs. It seems like the biggest small arms would be pistols and occasional SMGs. I assume that having a grenade would be a big deal in the Barrens. Is that your assumption as well?

Kinda depends on which Barrens your talking about. Some only have knives, pipes, chains, with the odd old or home-made gun. Others have more assault rifles then people.

You mean he wants to help the other gang, who pays him more under the table, right? Or maybe it's just that the punknaught owners are orks, and this serves as good a reason as any to put some dumb orks back in their place.



Not at all. My average ganger has an AK, an Ares pred and a knife. Note that AKs have a lower availability than ALL of the SMGs. Their big downfall is they aren't concealable, but who cares in the barrens? The guns are cheap, the ammo is cheap, they make a lot of noise, and when you actually hit something with them, the target usually goes down.

Some gangs are better connected than others (or just bigger). They might have the sway to get their hands on heavy weapons. That's canon in the book (like I said, there's at least one gang who operates almost completely on C-4 and rocket launchers). A gang favored by a major underworld player should be able to get some heavy weapons pretty easily (and then of course, those can be stolen by other gangs or whatever). A group connected enough to have a punknaught should have at least one heavy weapon.

The funny thing is, my shadowrunner groups are almost always at about the same level, gear wise. Their gear is tricked out better, but they won't have AV stuff until they're aroudn the 50 karma level (and I'm stingy on karma). That avail 8 cap hangs around for a while, really.

I would tend more toward assault rifles, shotguns and some sniper rifles+LAW:s.

The IDF can hit tunnels because it has drone planes with ground-penetrating sensors and the cooperation of the Egyptian government. And even then they can't get all of them and sometimes resort to what is known as "statistical bombing" (Drop a bomb ever 10 feet and you're bound to hit something).

Of course, the IDF also doesn't want to close all of the tunnels, because they're the only way the Palestinians can get food, and they want to leave them with just enough food so that they aren't desperate enough to storm Israel en mass.
And that also one of the reason why Lone Star won't strike in Z zones. When you have all the poor people confined to the ghetto, that's fine and good. But if you start blowing up that ghetto, those poor people will make their way out into the good neighborhoods. It probably won't be an organized effort, but a giant desperate mob is a damn powerful thing with self-organizing properties.

Toetag you are ref, you are the universe, you are god of your world.
If you want a punknaught, then as God of your world you may have a punknaught!

You have plenty of believable plot lines, some presented here, to impliment your desire in a fun manner.

What do you think your players and yourself would enjoy more? Answer this question, then do so. Ignore all distraction. (read Dumpshockers, including me.)


The choice is yours.

You know how, during the 80s, drug dealers tended to be portrayed as these sleezy dudes who hang out around elementary schools and in dank alleyways offering drugs random passers by with the same creepy zeal with which a fictional stranger will offer candybars and puppies to children at parks at playgrounds?

Well, in SR, there are grenade dealers like that. Seriously. Just play the Shadowrun game and you'll see what I mean, sleezy guys im trench coats who hang around in dark alleys offering illegal fragmentation grenades to anyone who passes by. It's silly. And half of them are undercover cops who'll hit you up for a bribe if you actually accept the grenades.


Understand that The Barrens are less like South Central and Harlem and more like Mogadishu and Darfur. Gangs are better described as feudal warlords and their men, for the most part, crossed with Batman villains to produce The Warriors style theme gangs on steroids.

That's not to say that it's a total hellhole. Some people live comfortably, and it can be fairly safe, so long as you don't step on too many toes. But it does mean that when government forces clash with gang forces, the outcome is not decided. Think about Communist rebels in poor South American countries and how often they have succeeded. Heck, the Spikes made a very good living attacking international shipping between the Seattle and Portland, the military and police forces of two countries couldn't effectively deal with them, mostly due to their use of tried and true guerrilla tactics dating back to Genghis Khan.

I tend to run my barrens gangs the same way. I've never developed a Punknaught per say but I do have a number of gangs, specifically the Halloweeners cruise around with Technicals armed with HMG's and a whole shitload of Halloweeners with assault rifles and melee weapons hanging off the sides. Technicals are a sign of prestige among gangs, even go-gangers make use of them since it gives them a way to bring some heavy ordinance to a rumble. Seeing a chopped up, armour plated, dumptruck packed full of gangers with a HMG on a pintle mount is enough to make any runner without a LAW tremble.

Even minor gangs will typically have a wide assortment of pistols, assault rifles, and the like. I remember one campaign arc that saw the PC's inject an entire shipment of almost 2000 Ares Alpha's into Redmond. Singlehandedly caused 3 major gang wars that spread into Downtown, and didn't wind down until the Metroplex Guard went in and cracked enough skulls to get the locals back in the asylum.

Actually the further you get from the barrens the 'weaker' gangers tend to be. They can't afford to pack a lot of ordinance for fear of bringing the Star down like the hand of God. If you're running into a gang anywhere that the Star actually patrols chances are they'll be packing a more 'traditional' assortment of pistols, knives, chains ect.

The shaman in my current game is a voodoo houngan who lives on the border between Touristville and Hollywood, and has spent a lot of time trying to improve her neighborhood - sinking about half the money she makes into bribing gangers to put roofs on some of the burnt-out buildings, etc, and is on decent terms with the local thugs AND cops because of it.

I am TOTALLY jacking this idea for a run. It will be hilarious and awesome.

How about the Gunslinger tank from Appleseed?

It kind of reminds me of a VW minivan with a 30mm turret.
Details

Really? We'd have airbursted two frags over the cargo compartment while the mage whistles up a fire spirit to go sit on the driver.

Assuming that LS doesn't feel an appropriate level of concern over the existence of gangs running vehicles with light armor and HMGs. I tend to run LS as not being totally insane, so they would typically feel obliged to ballistically deliver 500 pound cease and desist letters to anyone who they spotted running around with one of them.

I agree with the people who say that punknaughts might develop in Z-zones, but only there. I think LoneStar only really monitors maybe a half mile buffer zone into the really bad areas. The rest can burn for all they care.


Great line! You just added to my repertoire of witty comments.